220 systems and 5.0.9.2 Browser bug

Hey, Lifesize folks (and customers please note if it applies to you)- this is for EVERYONE who has a 220-series endpoint out there, be it connected to Cloud or not at this point-

If you are running 5.0.9.2 (which if you're on Cloud this will have happened automatically) I will bet you are really frustrated with issues accessing the web interface, no matter which browser you try or what security settings you use. You might be able to finally get it to work, but its hit and miss I imagine.

Well, we ran into this a while back and I actually thought it was resolved- but it's not. In fact, the ONLY sure way to have it work reliably is to roll back to 5.0.70.4 and then it all works again.

We've worked with the awesome folks in support (you know who you are) and they helped us out by pushing that older version to those specific cloud endpoints for us and voila, we can access it from the web once again (versus only from the 220 remotes and in front of it).

Pretty frustrating to try and manage a bunch of remote 220's where you can't upgrade or downgrade them yourself because the browser won't work isn't it?

While it would be awesome if everyone had the latest and greatest hardware (Icons) the reality is that there are a LOT of 220's out in the wild still. And any of them that are paired with CLoud or did a manual upgrade to 5.0.9.2 when it came out are affected by this bug. After all, they are supported through 2022 so they are bound to hang around a while still.

So, this is for you Lifesize engineering- PLEASE FIX THIS ISSUE. And to start with, may I suggest that you pull that version off the web and do a forced downgrade to all connected 220's currently paired with the cloud?

And if you're out there and aren't yet on Cloud (??) but you did the firmware upgrade and you aren't able to get in to change it, may I suggest a red-button factory reset partition swap procedure to get you back to the last image so you can once again manage your unit? That's what I had to do for a client just this AM so I feel your pain!

I know I can speak for every IT person who has to support them out there, this IS an issue and we'd very much appreciate it, please.

Thanks, folks. You're a great company and I know you'll get this resolved, I just thought it was time to say this as loudly as possible.

This issue is fixed. It's not a bug but a change in the way modern browsers work to make older versions of TLS obsolete, to forcibly expire insecure encryption methods.

5.0.70[4] contains this fix and properly supports only the secure versions of TLS, 5.0.9[2] is older and does not. Computer software version numbering works on a version.subversion.revision model, and this means it should not be read as a single decimal number. As such, 5.0.70 is higher than 5.0.9.

Although actually, you shouldn't be using either of them. You should be using at least 5.0.70[6], because it has a least one additional bug fix I've noticed. Lifesize doesn't seem interested in making any official releases after 5.0.9[2], I suspect they don't want to assign resources to run regression testing on 220 anymore. But yes, I do agree that something should be done; still having 5.0.9[2] as the latest firmware for 220 when you can't even open it in increasing numbers of browsers is almost as irrational as the final sunset version made available for Passport being 4.12.0, which has huge frequent software corrupting memory leaks while hotfix 4.12.73 was later produced a few months after in which they're fixed and is perfectly stable, but never released. If they don't have the time for full testing themselves then they should do a check on support tickets for these untested firmware versions and recognise the stability of 5.0.70[6] and 4.12.73[1] respectively. Properly releasing them is the lesser evil.

Does anyone know if 5.0.70[6] is still the latest firmware, if there's a later revision?

Hi, Stuart is referring to the hotfix 5.0.70 which is not available on the website. You would have to get that from support. We just had a customer with 80 express 220 systems called this week, and I was not able to assist because I could not get into the admin webui using any of the browsers! Thank goodness there is a way to push the hotfix(5.0.70) out to the 220 system since it was registered with cloud. Support would have to perform that action. Now, to coordinate with the customer on getting the rest of them upgraded to the 5.0.70 version!

As mtran, lhoffman, and stuart.tomlinson@greenpeace.org stated, the release necessary is version 5.0.70. Here in support, we requested a "final release" containing all bug fixes to-date and are working with our developers to scope the work and place it on our timeline.

In the meantime, my colleague posted the following public-facing content as a stop-gap measure:

Lastly, I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for taking the time to post your concern. I'm hopeful that the information posted by our friends and colleagues above adequately address your concern. However, if they do not please feel free to respond to me directly or to this post.

Hi Cody, thanks for the response! Just to let you know, that link from your colleague does not seem to apply on the latest browsers. I've gone through those suggestions, and it did not work for me. I had to call support.

To echo MT Tran- thanks for the tip but the information in that link isn't actually correct. To be clear, the only 100% certain way to access a 220-series that is running 5.0.9 (pushed by LS cloud by default) is to have SUPPORT roll it to 5.0.70.

Yes, you can find an old machine running XP or maybe Win 7 with an older browser and sometimes get it to work. But that's very, very frustrating and time-consuming and doesn't sit well with anyone who has to deal with it.

I reiterate my earlier statement. PLEASE remove this version ASAP from the website, post the 5.0.70 hotfix version (for non-cloud users, yes they are still out there) in its place and then force that down to Cloud-connected 220's.